Multiple Dimensions of Caregiving and Disability : Research, Practice, Policy

Ronda C. Talley, PhD, MPH, is Professor of Psychology at Western Kentucky University. Her prior work experience includes providing leadership on caregiving issues and organizational development as Executive Director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving and the National Quality Caregiving Coalition; working with national government groups to promote caregiving issues as Associate Director of Legislation, Policy, and Planning/Health Scientist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and promoting the science and practice of psychology in the schools as Associate Executive Director of Education and Director of School Policy and Practice at the American Psychological Association. She chaired the National Organization of Pupil Services Organizations and the National Education Goals Panel Committee on Safe and Drug-free Schools. Dr. Talley has over 80 presentations and publications, including papers in the American Journal of Public Health and American Psychologist.

Dr. Talley, as Adjunct Associate Professor, taught ethics and legal issues in school psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and directed the School Psychology Program at Spalding University; she was Professor of Psychology and Education at Georgia Southwestern State University for five years. Dr. Talley directed the School Psychological Services Program in the Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools for a decade. She received the Outstanding Alumni Award from Indiana University and the Jack Bardon Distinguished Service Award from the Division of School Psychology of the American Psychological Association.  Dr. Talley serves on the national board of the American Association of Caregiving Youth and is Editor-in-Chief of the Springer book series Caregiving: Research, Practice, and Policy. 

John E. Crews, DPA, is a Health Scientist with the Vision Health Initiative in the Divisionof Diabetes Translation, National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Crews has over thirty years of experience in vision rehabilitation and disability research. He managed a clinical program for older people with visual impairments in Michigan between 1977 and 1992. He then became the Acting Director of the Rehabilitation Research and Development Center on Aging at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Atlanta. After that, he served as the Executive Director of the Georgia Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. In 1998, he joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Dr. Crews’ specialties are vision impairment and aging and caregiving and disability; his research interests also include health disparities among people with disabilities and aging with a disability.

Dr. Crews has over eighty publications, including recent papers in the American Journal of Public Health and the Annual Review of Public Health. His first book, Vision Loss in an Aging Society, was published in 2000; it was translated and published in Japan in 2003. He has entries in the Encyclopedia of Disability and the International Encyclopedia of Public Health. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, and he serves on the National Commission on Vision and Health. He was awarded the 2007 Distinguished Alumni Award from Western Michigan University.